Governor: Legal fight costing state $3M daily

Illinois News Network

Published
4:51 am CST, Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Gov. Bruce Rauner acknowledges the crowd’s applause before signing an energy bill during a ceremony in Port Byron earlier this month. Rauner is turning his attention to a dispute between the state and its largest public employee union, which he said is instead costing taxpayers an additional $3 million each day. less

Gov. Bruce Rauner acknowledges the crowd’s applause before signing an energy bill during a ceremony in Port Byron earlier this month. Rauner is turning his attention to a dispute between the state and its ... more

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Gov. Bruce Rauner acknowledges the crowd’s applause before signing an energy bill during a ceremony in Port Byron earlier this month. Rauner is turning his attention to a dispute between the state and its largest public employee union, which he said is instead costing taxpayers an additional $3 million each day. less

Gov. Bruce Rauner acknowledges the crowd’s applause before signing an energy bill during a ceremony in Port Byron earlier this month. Rauner is turning his attention to a dispute between the state and its ... more

Governor: Legal fight costing state $3M daily

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What should be a resolved labor dispute between the state and its largest public employee union is instead costing taxpayers an additional $3 million each day, Gov. Bruce Rauner said.

AFSCME has been without a contract since July 2015. Although the state labor board ruled over a month ago that the two sides were officially at an impasse and Gov. Rauner can enact his “last, best, and final” offer, the union continues to challenge that ruling.

Rauner said last week that there’s a daily cost from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union’s appeal to a higher court of the state labor board’s ruling that the talks had reached an impasse.

“Every day that we delay through these court actions costs the people of Illinois almost $3 million per day,” Rauner said. “Think of how much we could do for our children in poverty, think of how much we could do for our schools and our human services if we weren’t wasting almost $3 million a day on this contract.”

The state’s projected deficit in the current fiscal year is over $5 billion, and the backlog of unpaid bills sitting on the state comptroller’s desk totals more than $10.5 billion.

Rauner said AFSCME is delaying implementation of common-sense terms to which 18 other unions already have agreed.

“It has merit pay for good performance, so our state employees can actually make more money,” Rauner said. “It puts in a 40-hour workweek, a novel idea in state government. Taxpayers work a 40-hour week. State employees should work a 40-hour week,” Rauner said. “We should also get to go forward with our task forces for workplace health and workplace safety.”

Meanwhile, to make things muddier, both Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, and House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, have made the ongoing dispute an issue in finding resolutions to the budget impasse. Madigan wants the contract status to be part of the budget discussion, and Cullerton wants continued negotiations with the union as a way to find union support for pension reform.

Unless an agreement is reached, the state will be without a spending plan after Dec. 31.